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My Experiences in Collecting Signatures Against Legislation of Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law By a UK practitioner (Clearwisdom.net) Upon hearing about the serious harm and potential
consequences of the legislation of Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law mentioned
by some practitioners, we decided to grasp the remaining limited time to collect
signatures at every major Chinese supermarket and restaurant to protest against
the legislation of Article 23. In the meantime, we also launched the campaign of
collecting signatures on university campuses and the streets. From Monday to
Friday, we went to Chinese supermarkets every afternoon. We first introduced our
purpose and the hazardous nature of legislation of Article 23 to the proprietors
and their staff. After hearing our explanation, they all signed their names.
With the proprietors' consent, we stood in front of the supermarkets' entrances
to collect signatures from passers-by, especially the Chinese who came there to
shop. The overwhelming majority of Chinese were very supportive. In particular,
the immigrants from Hong Kong were very concerned about this incident, and
almost every westerner also signed their names. On weekends, we went to downtown to spread the Fa. After that, we walked
along the streets to visit the Chinese restaurants one after another, and
solicited signatures from people there until we walked through all the streets
in that area. In our daily lives, we also collected signatures from people
around us. For instance, student practitioners solicited signatures from their
teachers and other students on university campuses during breaks or after
school; practitioners with jobs collected signatures from their colleagues in
their workplaces; still others collected signatures from those who came to the
exercise sites to learn the exercises. As we persevered everyday, the effect is
very good. On one hand, we collected signatures; on the other, we also mailed
the signatures we had collected to Hong Kong gradually. The following are parts of my understanding to share with fellow
practitioners: 1. Use our righteous thoughts and actions to eliminate evil interference: There was often quite a lot of interference at our activities. The most
common situations we ran into were bad weather and wasting a lot of time waiting
for buses. Once upon a time, a practitioner wanted to carry a table to the
street to facilitate collecting signatures. Right before his departure from
home, it rained suddenly. He perceived that it must be interference, and thus
immediately intensified his righteous thoughts so that he was able to take the
table to the street without being restricted by the superficial phenomenon. At
another time, when we were collecting signatures on the street, we noticed that
the sky was clear, but some dark clouds were just above us with occasional
raindrops. We thus started to send forth righteous thoughts to eradicate the
interference. Therefore, it didn't rain until we wrapped up our activities
there. In the first two days, we didn't see many Chinese shopping at the Chinese
supermarket. The proprietor was also surprised by the sudden decrease of
customers. We perceived that it must be the evil that made the illusion to
destroy our determination of doing it continuously. As a result, we sent forth
righteous thoughts while soliciting signatures. In no time, we saw more and more
customers shopping there. As to the internal interferences, they were being
physically uncomfortable, a feeling of inertia and doubts about whether others
would sign their names. These are all barriers we practitioners have to
overcome. 2. It is exceptionally important to coordinate as a complete body and improve
holistically: Almost all of the practitioners in this area actively participated in the
campaign. Every practitioner took advantage of his own strengths to collect
signatures from the people around him. The practitioners who just started to
learn Falun Gong also gave us a hand proactively. They took some blank signature
forms back home, and the forms were full of signatures a week later. Even some
of the Chinese we came across on the streets would also take a copy of the form,
saying that they wanted to ask their schoolmates pay attention to this incident,
and promised to mail the signature form to Hong Kong by themselves. Through this
campaign, I realized that Dafa practitioners' participation and cooperation are
very important. As a matter of fact, Dafa work sometimes should not only be done
by one or just a few practitioners. With more practitioners' participation, the
evil will thus collapse accordingly. As Teacher Li mentioned in the poem entitled "Just a Play": "Everything
through the ages has happened for the Fa," let's treasure this period of time
and cherish every opportunity to do our Dafa work even better. Posting date: 12/19/2002
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